


Fighting with the Stars

by arctickchild



Category: Mass Effect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-24 09:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arctickchild/pseuds/arctickchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Also known as the promise Kal'Reegar never made that he will never keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Kal!”

Reegar looks up from his rifle, sliding the barrel back into place with the ease of someone who probably spends way too much time playing with guns.

“Veetor,” he says. “Hey, kid. I thought you had therapy.”

Veetor bounces on the balls of his feet in front of him. It makes Reegar nervous watching him; he looks like a terrified bunny rabbit. But it seems to keep him calm, so Reegar doubts there's anything he can do about it.

“No,” he says. “My doctor is sick, so she isn't seeing anyone. Are you really going to Palaven?”

Reegar sets his gun aside. “That's what it looks like,” he says. “How'd you find out?”

Veetor takes a seat beside him. “Tali'Zorah told me,” he says. “She recommended you for the assignment, you know.”

Reegar nods. “I know,” he says. “Tali'Zorah's a smart girl. She knew where I needed to be, and she put me there. Even if she didn't like it.”

Veetor stares out over the common area, and Reegar can't help noticing that he's shaking.

“You'll come back though, right?” he asks. Reegar slips his arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer.

“I dunno,” he admits. “I'll try. But I can't make any promises.”

Veetor nods. He's rocking back and forth in his seat; his arms wrapped around his stomach as the rest of the crew mills about and talks and plans what they'll do with their new land.

“But I'll see you again,” Veetor says. “Right?”

Reegar stares out across the ship, and he sighs.

“I hope so, kid,” he says.

-

Reegar doesn't have a chance to set foot on Rannoch; he ends up being shuttled from the Rayya to a cruiser bound for the Apien Crest, and from there he finds himself on a frigate to Palaven.

He's only half-listening to the conversations around him, focusing instead on checking his thermal clip supplies, so he's only distantly aware of the fact that at some point the conversation turned from the battle to Rannoch. He doesn't notice that it's moved on from that until someone says his name, and he looks up, confused.

“Sorry, ma'am,” he says. “I was distracted. What do you need?”

The soldier closest to him laughs, and Reegar ignores the urge to shoot her.

“We were talking about what we'd do when we got back home,” she says. “I think the most common plan is to drink until the stars burn out. How about you?”

Reegar frowns. “Not sure yet, ma'am,” he says. “We have to live to see home before we can decide what to do with it.”

The soldier sighs. “You're a cheery one,” she says. Reegar smiles.

“Not my job to be cheerful, ma'am,” he says. “I'm just here to shoot things.”

The soldier laughs. “Fair enough,” she says, and the group turns back into themselves, talking and laughing as if they aren't about to land in a war zone.

He knows that, strictly speaking, his squad doesn't have the most dangerous assignment. They'll be going from checkpoint to checkpoint, reinforcing the lines of communication with Palaven Command and gathering information on enemy strength and tactics. But he also knows that unless they're careful and keep their shields up, they could be killed as effectively by a scratch as by a bullet to the head.

“What about you, Commander?” the soldier asks, distracting him. “You have a girl back with the F- back on Rannoch?”

Reegar checks his gun, making sure it's still serviceable. “No,” he says, and switches on his comm unit. “Do you have our ETA?”

“ _Five minutes, sir,_ ” the pilot reports.

The soldier is still watching him. “A boy?” she asks. Reegar hesitates, and sighs.

“Something like that,” he says. “Pack your gear up, we land in three. Leave anything you can't use to fight. They'll swing around and drop it off at the first checkpoint while we're getting our asses shot off by the Reapers.”

“Yes, sir!”

The soldier shoulders her sniper rifle, and her gaze is starting to make him uncomfortable.

“Think you'll see him again?” she asks. Reegar glances out the window, towards where the Reaper troops are already beginning to take notice of them.

“I hope so,” he says.

“And if you don't?”

“I'll work that out when we get there. Let's go!”

-

Veetor isn't sleeping when Elan comes to find him, and somehow she isn't surprised.

He's sitting on his bed, though, so she supposes that's an improvement. Staring out his window at the moon with a blanket wrapped around him. From what he's told her, he used to do that on Freedom's Progress. Looking for the man in the moon, he said. Apparently it was some sort of game the children would play with him when he got too nervous.

She wonders what's bothering him tonight.

She wonders if she can put off telling him for a few more hours.

“Hello, doctor,” he says. He isn't looking at her, but there are only two people in the galaxy with the codes to disengage the locks on his door, so she supposes she shouldn't be surprised.

“Hello, Veetor,” she replies. “Are you having nightmares again?”

Veetor looks toward her. “No,” he says. “I was – I couldn't sleep.” He pauses for a moment, and she watches him pull the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “What happened?”

Elan hesitates. “I just wanted to see how you were,” she says finally. “I can't sleep, either.”

Veetor turns back to the moon. “Kal's out there,” he says absently. “But he'll come back. He always does.”

Elan swallows, hard and goes to sit beside him. From this vantage point, she can see the stars, laughing down at her like an army of ghosts.

“Yes,” she says, and something in her stomach clenches so tightly she almost can't continue. “I suppose he does.”

She reaches over and takes his hand, and she tries to ignore the churning in her stomach that sounds far too much like Han'Gerrel saying _killed in action_.


	2. Chapter 2

They met when Kal was leaving for his Pilgrimage.

Veetor doesn't remember all of the details; he was there looking for someone, his mother probably, and he got separated from her and somehow found his way onto a shuttle nearby. He doesn't know how he managed to get past the docking officials – he wasn't nearly big enough for them to mistake him for being old enough to go on his Pilgrimage – but he did, somehow, and he ended up sitting in a corner seat with his knees drawn to his chest, trying to block out the sounds of the others as they found their seats and discussed their plans.

No one else noticed him; he guesses that they were too busy to see the child cowering in the corner. But Kal did, and he had to stay with the Fleet for another two months after getting his foot caught in the door helping Veetor get off the shuttle.

He swore a lot and Veetor ended up cowering in a completely different corner while his mother and Kal argued, but a few days later his mother sent him to go check on the strange boy who had broken his foot helping him.

It took two weeks before Veetor actually went inside and spoke to him, but if Kal noticed him lurking outside, he never said anything.

-

The last time they saw each other, Kal was leaving for Palaven.

Veetor doesn't remember what they talked about, if they talked at all; mostly he remembers listening to the captains calling their squads together, and waiting for Kal's ship to arrive.

He remembers sitting on the corner table with Kal and watching him. He wondered if he would be able to make it past the dock officers to go with them, and if Kal would break his foot getting him off the shuttle again. Maybe by the time it healed this time, the war would be over.

He doubted that would work, though, and he didn't really want a repeat of that first encounter, so instead he leaned against the wall and watched Kal watching everyone else, and he doesn't remember what they talked about (if they talked at all), but he does remember eventually falling asleep with Kal's arm around his shoulders and wishing he would never have to wake up.

-

Although they'll never know it, at the same time Reegar was taking his last breath on Palaven, Veetor was taking off his visor for the first time on Rannoch.

It doesn't count for much, in the scheme of things, but maybe if he'd know that, he wouldn't have hurt so much when Reegar looked for home in the skies above Palaven and was met with nothing but darkness and a bullet.


End file.
